Herald Tribune | By Nicole Rodriguez
The commission approved recommendations from affordable housing experts in an effort to create more workforce housing in the area.
SARASOTA — With rent and home prices continually rising, the Sarasota City Commission this week approved recommendations from affordable housing experts in an effort to create more workforce housing in the area.
The commission unanimously approved a series of recommendations from the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee — a board required by the state to review a jurisdiction’s established policies, procedures, ordinances and land development regulations to recommend actions to create affordable housing — aimed at helping foster workforce housing in a market where costs are rapidly increasing. It also approved a plan from the Florida Housing Coalition to confront the crisis the area has been trying to combat for decades.
“There is a challenging situation in our community and our region and that’s the challenge of enough affordable housing for the employees of so many of our businesses to have housing available fairly near to where they work…,” City Manager Tom Barwin said Monday, highlighting the need to act swiftly. “The City Commission decided it was time to move beyond aspirations to action.”
The commission rubber-stamped expediting the review and approval process for organizations and developers seeking to build affordable housing. Another approved recommendation extends the lease of an affordable housing property from the current 10 years to 30 years, so individuals or families could rent at a fair rate for a longer period.
Other recommendations the commission approved include: the reduction of parking and setbacks and the offering of other structural bonuses, such as density, height and lot coverage for entities building workforce housing. The housing committee also recommended development near transportation hubs and major employment centers; considering adaptive reuses of defunct shopping centers for housing and allowing accessory dwellings, such as detached guest houses, to single-family homes that could be rented out for a fair price. The committee also suggested the city examine its inventory of surplus lands that could be suitable for affordable housing.
The housing committee made similar recommendations approved last week by the Sarasota County Commission.
The City Commission also accepted a host of recommendations from the Florida Housing Coalition, a nonprofit, statewide organization whose mission is to bring together housing advocates and resources so all Floridians have a quality affordable home and suitable living environment.
The coalition recommended encouraging development of different housing types in single-family neighborhoods, such as triplexes and attached housing, which blend in with the surrounding homes while creating cheaper options for buyers and renters. More recommendations included: allowing accessory dwelling units in single-family zones; repurposing vacant commercial, retail and industrial properties for affordable housing; using surplus lands for workforce housing; providing fair housing training to government staff since workforce housing is a protected class in the state and collaborating with the local school district and other large employers to encourage them to donate land and resources for the development of workforce housing in exchange for incentives.
The Sarasota County School Board could potentially modify impact fees and use its surplus lands to provide affordable housing for teachers and other school personnel, said Jaimie Ross, president and CEO of the coalition.
“The public sector has a critical role, because the private sector can’t produce this housing without your help,” Ross told the City Commission. “You are actually legally required to provide for, not build, housing for your entire current and anticipated population, including special needs populations and so on. But the way you do that is with your planning tools, your financing tools, using incentives and requirements — and that’s really the meat of this report and blueprint.”
The same recommendations apply to Sarasota County as well, Ross said.
“There’s just a huge difference between what people earn and what housing costs and that’s the reason why we need to address workforce housing,” Ross said.
Home prices increased roughly 40 percent from 2012 to 2018, while household income has only risen 7 percent from $40,813 in 2012 to $43,477 in the fall of 2018, Ross said, citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies.
Apartment rent increases in five Southwest Florida cities slipped under the state and national averages just last month. Englewood, Longboat Key, North Port, Sarasota and Venice each posted average annual rent increases that were less than Florida’s 1.8 percent and the U.S.’s 1.3 percent, according to a report from online rental marketplace Apartment List.
Rents in the city of Sarasota inched up an average 0.1 percent in November from last year, the report said. But the median monthly rent of $1,389 for a two-bedroom Sarasota apartment was $179 more than the Florida median and $208 higher than the nationwide median.
“Renters will generally find more expensive prices in Sarasota than most large cities,” the report said.
November was the third straight month the city has seen rent increases following a decline in August.
Article last accessed on December 31, 2018 here. A print-ready pdf is available here.